Forum –
Ahh! Poor Mr Hart, get out the tissues folks.
I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or get angry with Council Administrator, Rik Hart’s, tirade at the Press Conference on November 10 – re criticisms of decisions made to get Council back on track financially.
Mr Hart took aim at the “pack of wolves” (his words) comprising of local and state politicians, the media, the community and probably the kitchen sink.
What a dummy spit.
Mr Hart may be right but throwing the community in with the rest is a bit of a stretch.
His frustrations and disappointments with the above, is just echoing what the community on the Coast have been putting up with for years.
The community had on top of that, the incompetent basket-case of Council as well.
The facts of the matter are, Mr Hart is a bean-counter (probably a very good one) and has been put in charge to balance the books – that’s his job, no matter how hard
the job is.
The community on the other hand, are being slugged heavily with rate increases and very little to show for it.
We don’t even have the basic infrastructures most other Councils have long had in place, such as kerb and guttering, storm water, footpaths.
The list goes on – don’t get me started on how most residents look after the Council owned verge outside their property – even though it is not our responsibility.
The Council have always counted on these savings knowing the community cares and have pride in keeping their neighbourhood looking pristine.
You might be receiving in the near future an invoice for lawn mowing services over the past few years.
So Mr Hart, your slur on community is not acceptable.
We are not the enemy here – we are soft targets.
Once again, don’t lose sight that the community did not stuff up.
Yet you expect us to go quietly and bail you out.
We haven’t forgotten your predecessor, Dick Persson’sc comments regarding all “Ratepayers” as “Shareholders”.
So we see the attitude and what you really think of our community.
Comments like that will never get the community on board with your plans to revisit IPART for even more money to be extracted from ratepayers for an extra seven years on top of the mandated 2 per cent rate peg.
Email, Nov 27
Barry Macdonald, Umina